Who Has Encountered These Types of “Requests”?

• “We need to develop a program on best practices for addressing the new competitor launching next month.”
• “How about we create a video or an app that shows what good looks like?”
• “Marketing has decided to go ahead and develop their own workshop for the NSM.”
• “We know you just finished the design, but NOW senior leadership has decided that the meeting needs to focus on a totally different topic.”

We hear from clients and partners alike who are confronted with these “requests” almost every week! When you hear these requests, you probably have an immediate response in your head that might go something like this…

• “We do not have time to do this!”
• “How are we going to shift gears this quickly?!”
• “This is already in formal review!”

 

What is the Purpose of Critical Questions?

Critical questions help you quickly identify training needs and align with a stakeholder’s business objectives when you encounter these types of requests. Critical questions are helpful because when a learning need pops up, you often don’t have time for a long exchange. Of course, you can ask to connect at another time for a deeper dive, but there are often a few key things that you should be sure to ask to ensure that you understand what is being asked of you.

Now of course, not every request that you get is a true training need! We will also review how to ask questions to identify if something is truly a training need. And lastly, you want to ensure that you are in proper alignment with your stakeholder’s business objectives. In these moments of need, there are often a lot of stakeholders involved. They can include marketing, sales and commercial leadership, medical, and market access.

These Type of Requests Can Happen at Any Point in the Learning and Development Process!

To provide some context for this discussion of critical questions, we will utilize a broad L and D framework: Plan, Develop, Execute, Measure.

We have broken out the questions according to these phases because, as we have all experienced, these requests can happen at any point during the process. Yes, they can even when you are almost done with development!  We are going to dive into questions that will help during any of the phases!

Plan

What are critical questions to ask if the moment of request happens before any of the training process has started, when you still have some time to plan and react to what is being asked of you?

“What problem are you trying to solve?” This question is critical to understanding whether what you are being asked to do does indeed require training.

• It is also critical to identify the requested business and project goals!
  • Audience?
  • Performance Outcomes?
  • Learning Constraints/Challenges?

Focusing on these areas will help ensure “alignment” with your key stakeholders across the organization.

• Is this a knowledge objective, a skill, or a performance objective? Or is this an attitudinal or belief objective? Do we need to convince the learners of the importance of some aspect of how they do their job or how it may be changing? Making these distinctions in your questioning is critical.
  • Learning Objectives
  • Delivery Methods
  • Sequence Learning Activities
  • Timing
  • Pull-Through and Reinforcement

The objectives may be a blend, and often are, but knowing that will help you put your arms around the problem. It may take several meetings and interactions to define and plan, but that process is always time well spent.

Develop

Once you get the initial plan together and everyone understands the goals and objectives, you can shift to determining “how” and “what” you will develop.  Questions to ask include:

• How do we implement the plan from first draft to rollout? Are all stakeholders on board?
• Medical Legal Regulatory Concept
• Internal Stakeholder Review
• Rollout Requirements

Execute

As you think about execution of the training, ask:

• How will we implement the training solution?
• Who will be involved?
• What is the timing/rollout plan?

In this execution phase, determining whether a pilot of a training initiative is feasible will be a critical component of the questions that you ask, as the introduction of a pilot may change the timing and sequence of how you execute, and may change the team involved. Thinking ahead to this stage will also allow you to ask questions about the rollout, distribution platforms, production needs, and more. These steps will often impact both timing and resources and are critical when planning the execution of the materials.

• Pilot?
• Training Implementation?
• Field Training?
• Rollout Methods?

Measure

Finally, ask:

• How will we know if we achieved the objective?
• How will we measure success?

Your questions in this phase will focus on gaining alignment around the type of evaluation you want to put in place, and what measurement of success people will agree to. You should also be concerned with the level of measurement that you will be allowed to conduct.

• Types of Evaluations?
• Levels of Evaluations?
• Budget/Timeframe?

Keep all these questions on hand for the next time you encounter a request that makes you think “You want WHAT by WHEN??”

Have any additional questions? Contact us today!